“But it was not enough simply to perceive injustice. Mass resistance was possible only when people believed they had the collective capacity to change things. For poor people, this required identifying with the oppressed, and counting yourself among them—which was something most trailer park residents were absolutely unwilling to do.”

American sociologist

Matthew Desmond is an American sociologist and professor at Princeton University. He is known for his work on housing, poverty, and inequality, and for leading the Eviction Lab there. At Princeton, he serves as the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology and as principal investigator of the Eviction Lab. He was formerly the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022.